THE GENIUS AND POSTURE OF AMERICA, 



AN 



ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, 



JULY 4, 1857. 



WILLIAM KOUNSEVILLE ALGER, 




BOSTON: 
J. E. FARWELL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS TO THE CITY, 



37 Congress Strket. 
1864. 



THE GENIUS AND POSTURE OF AMERICA, 



AN 



ORATION 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE CITIZENS OF BOSTON, 



JULY 4., 1857, 



WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. 




BOSTON: 

J. E. FAllWELL AND COMPANY, PRINTERS *rO THE CITY, 

37 Congress Street, 

1864. 



CITY OF BOSTON, 



In Common Council, Nov. 17, 1864. 
Ordered : That the thanks of the City Council be presented to the 
Kev. William E. Alger for the Oration delivered by him to the muni- 
cipal authorities on the celebration of the Declaration of American 
Independence, July 4, 1857, and that he be requested to furnish a 
copy for publication. 

Sent up for concurrence. 

GEORGE S. HALE, President. 



Concurred. 

Approved Nov. 22, 1864. 

A true copy. 
Attest : 



In Board of Aldermen, Nov. 21, 1864. 
OTIS NOECEOSS, Chairman. 

E. W. LINCOLN, Jr., Mayor. 
S. F. McCLEAEY, City Clerk. 



■ Boston, Nov. 25, 1864. 
To the Common Council aiid Board of Aldermen : — 

Gentlemen : Gratefully acknowledging the honor of your vote, I 
herewith, in accordance with your request, send a copy of the Oration 
which, at the invitation of the City Authorities, I pronounced on the 
fourth of July in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-seven. 
Very respectfully, your fellow-citizen, 

WILLIAM E. ALGER. 



6 THE GENIUS AND 

At the very outset their property snnk to half its 
value, and the whole trembled on a desperate risk. At 
every turn the penalty of high treason — the black gib- 
bet with its ghastly cord, the deathman's block and axe 
— gloomed in their imaginations. With each succes- 
sive step, for a long time, their embarrassments and 
hardships grew heavier, discouragements flocked upon 
them, pitfalls lurked athwart their way, and deepening 
darkness covered the close. Still they yielded not ; 
but with wills like adamant, faith like inspiration, and 
self-sacrifice like martyrdom, they bore up the burden 
of the land, cheered the faint-hearted, and maintained 
their cause until a, brighter day. If we could in im- 
agination reproduce their circumstances, and place our- 
selves in their situation, and see what spirit and nerve 
it required calmly to confront, as a helpless handful of 
them did on the church-green, the minions of tyranny 
who coldly shot them down, their blood staining the 
April swards for many a hundred springs to come, — 
without experience or discipline unflinchingly to face 
the serried and blazing ranks of the most veteran sol- 
diery in the world, as they did in the sun of Bunker 
Hill, with no weapons but their clubbed muskets, and 
no defence but their farmers' frocks over their beating 
bosoms, — to stand by the cause with incorruptible in 
tegrity and irrepressible hope when staggering bribe 
beset them in fleld and forum, when traitors swaggered 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 7 

in the camp and tories swarmed in the town, and when 
the overwhelming forces of the foe, flushed with vic- 
tory, drove them at every passage, — still, to hold un- 
falteringly by their holy purpose, with no end but 
duty and no motive but freedom, vanquishing the 
temptations which must have assailed them when, de- 
feated, neglected, disheartened, their numbers fearfully 
thinned by battle, disease, and hardship, hunger reduced 
them to the gaunt verge of starvation, the winter's cold 
benumbed their emaciated limbs, and they reddened the 
snow over which they walked with their bare and 
bleeding feet ; — if by mental experience of this we 
were able for a moment actually to feel the merit im- 
plied in undergoing what they underwent, daring and 
struggling as they dared and struggled, and accomplish- 
ing at last what they finally accomplished, we could not 
help setting their names on high, and often reverting 
to read their story with thrills of admiration. And 
when we thought, in addition, of the illimitable benefits 
resulting from what they did, we could not help cele- 
brating their memories with perennial praises. "Yea," 
we should exclaim, " so often as the anniversary of 
their triumphant crisis rolls round, let the jubilant 
bells peal, and the thunderous cannon boom, and the 
gay flags flutter, and the people's jocund shouts greet 
the sun as he mounts in the morning : let the voices of 
eloquent orators, and the chanting of hymns, and the 



8 THE GENIUS AND 

thdlling blasts of martial music, and every sort of re- 
joicing, all over the land, freight the air at noon, while 
the statues of departed heroes and statesmen are set up 
amidst acclamations, and emulous purposes are kindled 
in fresh aspirants, and groups of young men in athletic 
sports form living pictures on grass and stream, and 
innocent children with flowers and mottoes move in 
procession through the streets ; and, when night falls, 
let illumii;ations and pyrotechnics put out the stars ! 
Let all this be done, for it is right and well ! " we 
should say. 

Fortunately for us, and for the world, their fidelity 
needed not the prophetic incentive of posthumous 
honors. They were of that stuff heroes are made of; 
and, enduring all things, hoping all things, they clung 
to their original objects till the stormy and disastrous 
night of their feebleness rolled away, and the morning 
light of promise broke, and successive triumphs fol- 
lowed, and independence rose upon the land where, 
in the foreground, two groups reflected its earliest 
lustre in the adoption of the Constitution and the 
mauguration of Washington. They lived — the most 
of them — to see their desperate enterprise crowned 
with complete success. And afterwards, year by year, 
as long as they lived, they saw more than the fulfil- 
ment of more than their most brilliant expectations. 
And when, attended by the benedictions of their coun- 



POSPURE OF AMERICA. y 

try, they went to the house appointed for all the living, 
they were comforted with the reflection that they had 
fought a good flght, and should leave their children an 
unparalleled heritage. 

Rapidly, too rapidly, the years have fled, and the 
gray revolutionary sires are nearly all gone. Only a few 
now linger, here and there, time-hallowed memorials of 
other days and of other men. Only a few scattered 
and tremulous stalks are left in the great field that has 
been reaped and garnered by death. Soon none at all 
will be left. Well, they will sleep in honored dust. 
The historian and the poet shall hand down their fame. 
As long as time endures, with this returning day their 
story shall be recalled, and votive wreaths be freshly 
twined around their names. Pious hands and fond 
hearts shall guard and deck their graves, and keep 
their monuments whole, and their memories green. 
This is little, but it is all they ask, and all that we can 
give. Shall we ever fail to grant if? No, not until we 
forget that while they are resting beyond the touch 
of mortal feeling, the comforts we enjoy are the 
lineal fruits of what was willingly purchased for us by 
them at the price of their prayers, toils, tears, and blood. 
Peaceful, then, be the slumbers of those who have fallen 
on sleep. "Dying, they have but exchanged their coun- 
try's arms for their country's heart," wherein they shall 
live forever. Long may the survivors be spared to enjoy 

2 



10 THE GENIUS AND 

the public prosperity, and to read their reward in a grate- 
ful nation's eyes ! And when at length all shall have 
gone, — when the whole country, amidst the mighty 
dirge of a people's grief, shall have poured its tears 
around the fresh grave of the last one, — green be the 
turf above them, and hallowed the spots where they lie. 
Let the feet of happy children tread lightly there, and 
there the pilgrim patriot pause as he passes, to invoke 
a blessing on their souls, and breathe a prayer for the 
land they served so well. 

Our distinct National existence began with the 
flinging forth of the daring and lofty manifesto 
known throughout the world as the American Dec- 
laration of Independence. We observe to-day the 
eighty-first anniversary of that proclamation. The 
theme best fitting such an occasion is obviously the 
characteristic privileges, duties, and dangers of the 
country. To the treatment of that theme one reluct- 
ant word must form the introduction. Every honest 
patriot who this day speaks the praises of America 
must first confess — though it be wrung from him 
in shame and anguish — that so far as slavery extends 
its dismal anomaly over our soil, it is an unmitigated 
contradiction to his boasts. Where this wedded mis- 
fortune and sin exists, and while it lasts, our pic- 
turesque displays fade out in sable groups of woe, 
weary coflles, and sundered families ; and the pceans 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 11 

of the platform die away in the wails of the planta- 
tion. Bat slavery is not properly any part of our 
National Government, — not an element in our organic 
life, but a sectional disease, a temporary excrescence. 
It is rightfully no more a part of our country than a 
snake's nest is a part of a granite cliff. The Free 
States alone fairly represent the true genius and his- 
toric posture of the Republic. 

With the exception now stated, let us see in what 
particulars we, as a people, are favored beyond the 
subjects of other nations. It will be useful to answer 
this question with distinct thoughts and feelings. For 
then we shall understand definitely what we have to 
be thankful for, to cherish, and to guard. 

First among our national advantages is to be reck- 
oned an organized political equality. No unjust and 
irritating favoritisms are interwrought with the order 
of our habits and the substance of our institutions. 
Among us is no legal distinction between peer and 
peasant, prelate and mechanic ; but before the laws 
of the land, and before the possibilities of life, all 
are politically equal. In the fixed and wonted enjoy- 
ment of this great right we have but the faintest 
conception of its importance, and of the bitter griev- 
ances imposed on those who are deprived of it. What 
should we think if compelled to submit, as so many 
still are, to the law of primogeniture, by which 



12 THE GENIUS AND 

nearly all the wealth of a family goes to the eldest 
male descendant, leaving the others dependent, and 
introdncing, without a reason, the cruelest inequalities 
of social standing and public opportunity even among 
members of the same household? How should we 
feel if a large class, with no claim but ancient 
prescription, covered with hereditary titles and hon- 
ors, should lord it over the mass of the people, making 
thousands, far their superiors in every attribute of real 
greatness, cringe at their bidding 1 What should we 
say if a set of men were born to be our rulers, 
whether fit or unfit, and if the chief offices of author- 
ity and emolument among us were filled by the in- 
competent favorites of pompous dignitaries, without 
consulting us in the least '? The trial would be greater 
than we could bear. Heaven be thanked that we can 
choose our own men for our own offices ; that with 
us the condition of rank and glory is not the acci- 
dent of family descent, but the possession of personal 
merit ; that there are here no impassable limits of 
caste, and hedges of prerogative ; that with us the 
incentives to effort are diffused, and the doors of 
preferment are open to all, leaving every poor man's 
boy free to rise in proportion to his genius, virtue, 
and labor, even till they bear him to the chief throne 
in the Nation. This republican equality of all classes, 
and universal accessibleness of honors, is a glorious 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 13 

thing, that we do not think enough of, and cannot 
prize too highly. 

The next i^rominent ingredient in the happiness 
of our people, is the enjoyment of untrammelled 
speech and printing. We write, talk, and publish 
without the galling interference of a despotic censor- 
ship. The press is free on these shores, however 
broadly it shines or threateningly it fulminates. 
There is no dictating official clique here, armed with 
absolute power by the Government, to whom every 
author must submit his book before he dares to pub- 
lish it, and at whose condemnation it must be in- 
stantly suppressed. No ; our poets freely breathe 
forth the sentiments of their souls, — our historians 
and essayists discuss their subjects as they please, — 
our novelists write tales with what moral they choose, 
— our reviewers criticize books, men, and measures, 
according to their consciences or their fancies, — our 
wildest reformers scatter their fierce invectives and 
appeals in every mode and quantity, — and none of 
them has the slightest fear of a spy or an arrest. 
God made the heart and the intellect free, and con- 
sistent republicanism leaves the lips without a padlock, 
and the press without a hinderance, trusting that 
preponderant common sense and right feeling will, in 
the long run, evolve the best results from full, un- 
molested argument. But it is not left so everywhere. 



14 THE GENIUS AND 

There are countries where sleepless, heartless tj'ranny, 
made cowardly and cruel by its peril, watches to 
suppress free thought, and to tread out the generous 
sparkles of its ashes. Official informers, paid and 
fed for the purpose, prying in every corner, snuff tlie 
first breath of heresy, catch the first whisper of 
liberty, and straightway the word goes forth from the 
priestly and political censors ; — the press of the print- 
er is confiscated, the editors are fined and degraded 
from their post, the authors go to the dungeon or into 
banishment. How galling such dictation must be to 
men of genius, compelled, on peril of every comfort, 
perchance of life itself, to hold down the words which 
burn for utterance, and which every honest thought 
and noble impulse tell them to shout aloud to heaven 
and earth ! Can we be half grateful enough that we 
are free to say and print, on any subject, what we 
believe is true and ought to be proclaimed, with no 
dread of despotic supervision or judicial penalties? 

The third benefit we owe to our American form of 
government, is theological freedom, an escape from 
religious disabilities, and hierarchical tyranny. Jew 
and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Orthodox and 
Heterodox, — all possess the same unrestricted rights 
and immunities, all alike are eligible to every elective 
office ; equal facility of access to every source of 
education, business, and preferment, is afi"orded to all. 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 15 

111 otlier ages it was not so. In other lands now it is 
not so. Even in free and favored England, bigoted 
religious proscriptions weigh on the whole realm, from 
the monarch — who must be a sworn Episcopalian, 
and whose conscientious avowal of a different opinion 
would convulse the empire, and perhaps cause a dis- 
crownal — to the peasant, who. if a Dissenter, finds the 
national colleges shut from him. the appointing power 
of the State, the dread influence of the Church, and 
the vast patronage of the nobility, frowning upon him, 
and closing every door of privilege against him. The 
temptations to falsify his genuine con^'ictions are thus 
brought to bear terribly on every gifted and ambitious 
man, and it is notorious that many of the ablest men in 
the Establishment, for the sake of retaininsf their 
places, sign articles which they both disbelieve and 
loathe ! What are a man's chances of executive rec- 
ognition and preferment if he be a Dissenter? Thoucjh 
his eloquence shake forum and temple, and his genius 
illumine the earth, and his "\-irtues awaken the admir- 
ing love of men, yet shall the government and its 
lackeys sneer at him and overlook hin, and — unless 
the people defiantly lift him on their throbbing heart 
to a level face to face with earls and dukes — he shall 
remain in neglected obscurity, while supple mediocrity, 
by conforming to the orthodox statutes, rises from 
station to station, receives title after title, and rolls 



16 THE GENIUS AND 

through princely parks in the envied wealth and pomp 
of a state-minister, or flaunts its bloated luxury in 
metropolitan sees. Such a state of things arouses the 
indignation of the good, ruins the souls of the weak, 
disturbs the religious peace, and corrupts the moral 
health of the kingdom. In this respect how favored 
we are ! Every person may follow and avow his real 
religious preferences without any public disability or 
social injury, according to the provisions of the Con- 
stitution and the hearted customs of the people. So 
ought it to be. What a man shall believe, as he lives 
in this solemn universe, is a sacred thing between him 
and his God. No tampering of bribes and threats 
should ever be suff'ered to interfere with it. The de- 
libeiate organization of such an influence is a gigantic 
outrage, so old and so common on the earth that we 
ought to rejoice heartily at being free from it. 

Fourthly, we enjoy in this country a whole class of 
priceless privileges which may be comprised undei^ the 
general description of exemption from all those enor- 
mous, unrighteous, vampire burdens of accumulated 
debt, war establishments, feudal laws, tythings, brood- 
ing antiquity and fear, which crush the over-crowded 
populations of the old world to the earth, and drain 
out the energy of their life-blood. From the intoler- 
able load of these transmitted and growing ills we 
are delivered. A form of government marvellously 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. IT 

cheap, nearly all the business being transacted by. the 
people themselves in their primary town meetings, at 
small expense of time, and less of money, — makes our 
taxation light. We are neither goaded by the arro- 
gant whims, and ruled by the selfish policy of an auto- 
crat, nor insulted with the mockery of a royal family 
on whom we are obliged to lavish millions a year, for 
no service they render, but simply that they may honor 
us by living in magnificence, and riding in state, being 
guarded by bayonets, and gazed at by gaping crowds! 
No interest on immense debts unjustly incurred ages 
ago, bearing only the fruit of blood, wretchedness, and 
starvation, — no swollen salaries paid to locust hordes 
of useless officials, — no priestly tythes enforced whether 
we will or not, wring away the honest earnings of our 
independent laborers ; but a simple, self-ruling democ- 
racy, peace and plenty, the common school, the open 
church, and all the natural rights of the individual, un- 
infringed, make them happy and contented. In this 
refulgent summer day, as they pause, leaning on their 
scythes, and wipe the sweet from their brows, and 
look around on the teeming fields, to be distrained by 
no cormorant landlords ; or as they quaff" refreshment 
from the mossy old bucket poised on the well-curb, — 
deeply should they sympathize with the suff"ering 
peasantry of other lands, and bless the unrivalled 
institutions of their own. 

3 



18 THE GENIUS AND 

Unlike some nations, where a mob in a single city 
has repeatedly built and unbuilt the entire government 
in twenty-four hours, we are not at the mercy of local 
excitements. The safe and extended stability of our 
country is such that before one of these surprising 
effervescences can spread far enough for serious alarm, 
it cools and dies. Therefore we are not afraid of 
sudden explosion and revolutionary overthrow. Our 
Government has an expansiveness, a flexibility, a recu- 
perative power, that mock at such fears. No legiti- 
mate evil «an reach a really dangerous pitch before 
the popular election may redress it. When winter 
comes, the snowflakes gently descend, and clothe the 
fields with a garment of freshness, hiding the filth of 
decay, and the ruggedness of the rocks ; so, without 
difficulty or turmoil, when the majority wish it, the 
ballots of this free people fall, and spread a new law 
over society, beneath which the ugliness of wrong and 
the noise of contention disappear. In the old world 
countries, the antiquated customs, dead traditions, bur- 
densome rules of bygone ages, still cramp the minds 
and hearts of men, as the crushing armor of those 
times would their bodies if they now wore it. With 
us no such things remain. We have thrown them 
away, never more to shackle with the iron bigotries of 
the past the buoyant movements of our free spirits. 
Here, on this young Western strand, exempt from 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 19 

the ills that curse and paralyze other nations, bidding 
a frank good by to the wornout things of old, we have 
taken possession of a new country, victoriously fought 
a new battle, and founded new institutions, and are 
now training ourselves up, a newly commingled people, 
who, animated with new plans and faith, the morning 
sunlight of heaven's guiding favor on their foreheads, 
and the great clock of time striking a new hour in tl!e 
affairs of mankind, shall press forward to new destinies, 
resplendent with unimagined boons of freedom and 
love. 

In view of .the fact that we are enjoying such glo- 
rious advantages, what is the true mission of America? 
Evidently it is to preserve, increase, and perpetuate 
these blessings here, and to try to secure them else- 
where. The work providentially brought before this 
people, in the -line of the testamentary ages and ex- 
perimenting nations, plainly is the organization of 
political and social liberty in just and beneficent 
institutions. And how clear it is that to do that well, 
and establish the perfect result firmly, setting its grand 
and shining success on high before the unimpeded 
gaze of mankind in such unstained brightness and 
towering eminence that purblind tyrants shall own 
that they see it, and lynx-eyed critics confess that they 
discern no flaw in it, — is the way to do the utmost 
good for the other nations of the earth ! Regarding 



20 THE GENIUS AND 

this point as admitted, — namely, that the mission of 
our country, both for her own lasting salvation and for 
the redemption of her groaning brother-lands, is to 
achieve, and enthrone in dazzling exhibition to the 
world, a national example of political perfection, — the 
most important part of our theme at once opens upon 
us. The question, charged with those grave consid- 
efations which ought to occupy the attention of every 
citizen, irresistibly rises, — What are our immediate 
duties as constituents of the Representative Republic 
of the world ? 

The indispensable work, reaching through the 
whole scale of our obligations, is to secure nationol 
righteousness at home. In the first place this is the 
most immediate requisition of morality. The essential 
thing for a man or for a nation to do is to put away 
vices, and cultivate virtues. This is the eternal claim 
whose light and sanction no one can avoid seeing and 
feeling, whether he obeys it or not. We as a people 
are bound to strive with banded earnestness to purify 
the land from every removable iniquity, and fill it 
with all attainable righteousness: because by the terms 
this is the very meaning of the word dut^, the vitality 
of the moral law. If an individual who wa§ cruel 
and selfish in his family, careless and fraudulent in 
his business, should go about urging the claims of 
domestic love and mercantile integrity, every one 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 21 

would say that he had perversely mistaken his voca- 
tion, that his real duty wsls to reduce right principles 
to practice in his own sphere. So with a nation : its 
first obligation, its very function, is to organize justice, 
freedom, and beneficence in its own laws of life; to 
plant liberty on its public hills, joy in its private 
valleys, holiness in its courts, and mercy in its high- 
ways. The nation that recklessly disregards that, 
tramples on the elements of ethics, insults mankind, 
and defies God. A genuine patriotism will, therefore, 
labor to destroy the wrong and build up the right 
in its country, for the same reason that a pure and 
undefiled religion visits the afflicted, and keeps itself 
unspotted from the world : namely, that that is the 
very essence of its being. 

But, secondly, we must endeavor to establish na- 
tional righteousness at home, because that is the only 
possible way of securing permanent success and pros- 
perity. Without internal holiness — conformity to 
that rule of right which is the will of God, in its 
institutions, laws, character, and conduct — no nation 
can long stand. Every reality of things and of morals 
is unchangeably leagued and invisibly arrayed against 
it. Eve'ry omen is sombre, the perilous portents of 
retribution swarm around, and the day of downfall 
moves fatally on. Crime inevitably breeds trouble. 
Sin is necessarily cumulative and destructive, like an 



22 THE GENIUS AND 

obstructed river. Injustice is essentially disorganizing 
and revolutionary. It is the nature of evil that it 
cannot stay quiet, but must work, and grow averse, 
spreading and dilating till it snatches the flash of rev- 
elation and shudders with the bolt of judgment. Let 
a palpable wrong be in the working machinery of the 
State, and, if it be suffered to continue, it will produce 
friction, interference, extending disorder, till all is 
stopped in a general crash. Wherever there is, in the 
political fabric of society, an organized, unnecessary 
evil of any kind, it infallibly provokes hostility, awak- 
ens dissension, and causes deepening danger and alarm, 
tiU it is removed. Those whose moral convictions it 
ofl'ends, must protest and strike against it. Those 
whose interests it iiijures, will be indignant towards it. 
Those whose selfishness it subserves and whose pre- 
judices it pleases, with reckless fierceness will seek to 
uphold it. And so all passions are enlisted, and the 
debate gets loud, and animosities are inflamed, and 
plots and counterplots are laid. Meanwhile, if it be 
an actual wrong, and be forcibly maintained, the ele- 
ments of explosion are mustering and muttering, and 
at last break out in the lurid upheaval of mobs, 
insurrection, and mutual terror, — to result, perchance, 
in successful revolution, perchance in suppressal by 
a heavier despotism, perchance in cure, or, perchance, 
in utter ruin. History reads us many a dread lesson 
of this sort. 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. . 23 

The dead nations whose giant skeletons now lie 
bleaching and crumbling on the sands of time, all 
died of sin. It was their crimes that dug their graves 
and pushed them in. Licentious luxury sapped the 
strength and rotted the virtue of one, — and it disap- 
peared beneath the green pool of its own corruption. 
Brutal war, made a business of, and carried in every 
direction, drew upon another the wrath of the world, 
— and it was dashed on the rock of its own barbarous 
force. Domestic bondage, grown enormous, trodden 
under foot, and goaded to madness, rose on another, — 
and buried it in the conflagration and slaughter of its 
own provocation. Internal antipathy, based, on sec- 
tional differences, fed by selfish interest and taunting 
debate, finally exploded in the quarrelling parties of 
another, — and hurled its dissevered fragments to ruin 
by the convulsive eruption of its own wrong and 
hatred. Of all the empires whose melancholy ghosts 
now pace the margin of oblivion, not one ever sunk 
but its fall was caused by internal iniquity in some 
way or other. Shall the stately shade of repub- 
lican America, too, go down to join the doleful com- 
pany of crowned spectres, moving them beneath to 
rise,up at her coming with the sardonic mock, " Art 
thou also become as we ? " If we would avoid their 
doom of vengeance we must not tread their path of 
";uik. 



24 THE GENIUS AND 

lu complete opposition to this nature and effect of 
wickedness, righteousness in a nation's politics and 
dwellings has a vivifying power, an assimilating and 
preservative tendency. The people whose rights are 
equally secured to them all, whose interests are well 
protected, who, free from irritating wrongs and jeal- 
ousies, may all alike approach the sublime gifts and 
opportunities of nature and society, can hardly help 
dwelling in contentment and flourishing in progressive 
strength. The secret causes of convulsion or decay 
do not exist there, but all are sympathetically happy, — 
from the counting-room millionaire, watching his com- 
plex web of enterprise, to the hillside ploughboy, 
whistling an echo to the lark in the clouds, — and 
their country may well hope to survive forever. 

We ought to strive towards this end also because 
it is the direct way to exert the strongest influence 
for good upon foreign countries. Indeed, without the 
realization of internal integrity, we can do very little 
good abroad. Our example will be so sullied and 
compromised as almost to be spoiled and powerless. 
Our brave preaching will be flung back to us with the 
taunt, " Physician, heal thyself." But let us lift up 
a front of unmarred holiness above all our hearths and 
altars, — let there not be a single shackled bondsman 
in our territory, — let there be an entire consistency 
between our customs and our glorious professions, — 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 25 

let US show here a vast land with no loweiing military, 
because peace and safety are so stable ; with no sick- 
ening almshouses, because there are no paupers to 
need them ; with no dismal prisons, because there 
are no criminals to require them ; bounteous fruits 
loading the fields, smiling faces lining the streets, the 
awful and resplendent eegis of righteousness extended 
firmly over all, — and the spectacle of that spotless 
Eepublic would be an omnipotent ''■power on earth" — 
would set the gazing nations delirious to imitate it. 

The first duty, therefore, of every American, is to 
cleanse his country from wrong, and to establish im- 
partial righteousness at home. He must lend his aid 
in every proper method to those reforms which aim 
to remove human bondage, intemperance, the gallows, 
and every other legal crime and shameful custom 
fastened on us in the pagan night of the past ; that 
no more manacled hands and streaming eyes may be 
upturned, pleading to us for pity and to Heaven for 
justice ; that no more corpses, swinging in the gibbets 
of our jail-yards, may curdle the blood of Christian- 
ized humanity in its veins ; that the matted and 
seething masses of licentiousness and pauperism, 
abated from their dens, may no more infect and 
upbraid our civilization. Let this be done, and 
we shall indeed be blessed within and influential 
without. Our country will be an impregnable for- 



26 THE GENIUS AND 

tress, furnished to stand the eternal siege of the ele- 
ments ; and our people, if ever alien hosts should 
threaten, animated by one resistless impulse, will 
gather at the landing, and either whip them from the 
shore, or bury them in the strand. 

But if our institutions and conduct are righteous, 
there will be no occasion for anything of that kind. 
For, the second emphatic obligation resulting from 
the American posture is to preserve national fraternity 
in its relations abroad. To such an attitude, unless 
absolutely driven from it, we are pledged by the his- 
toric policy of our wisest men, urged by the force of 
interest, and bound by the sanctity of right. There 
may be different opinions upon some particulars touch- 
ing our duty towards foreign races, but a few points 
are unmistakably clear. In th^: first place, we can- 
not help sympathizing profoundly with the victims of 
oppression in Italy, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, 
and elsewhere. Their children starving, their hands 
tied, their mouths stopped, their noblest representa- 
tives pining in prison, or wandering broken-hearted 
in exile ; — in our favored circumstances to view these 
facts, and then to withhold all commiseration from 
the sufferers, and refuse them a welcome here, would 
be to prove our souls alien from every moral attribute 
of God, and recreant to every generous fibre of hu- 
manity. Exempt here, under the palladium of our 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 27 

democracy, and in the citadel of our independence, 
from all the stinging wrongs heaped on the persecuted 
laborers and patriots of despotic countries, cold and 
mean is the heart that will not waft them a sigh of 
sympathy, and offer them a cheerful invitation. Our 
forefathers meant this land should be an asylum where 
the hunted exile might come and find shelter and 
brotherhood. So may it ever be! Let the mighty 
doors of the West, through which the setting sun 
rushes in floods of gold and purple, stand open for the 
longing multitudes to come in. What though they 
share our plenty and lessen our monopoly? They 
are our brothers, and their coming diminishes the 
average wrong and misery of humanity; and, ming- 
ling with our republican population, there will be so 
many happy freemen the more. Ay, let them come, 
with our hearts' greeting, for we have room enough. 
Let their axes wake the echoes of the primeval forests, 
their ploughs and spades encroach on the boundless 
prairies, and the smoke of their cabins curl to the 
astonished clouds, in those teeming regions where 
lonesome Nature yet waits for the ornament and hum 
of man's companionship. 

But this sympathizing reception of the spurned la- 
borers and flying refugees of other lands does not bind 
our country to be made a common sewer and recep- 
tacle for the ofl"scourings of the old world, the empty- 



28 THE GENIUS AND 

ings of its jails, hulks, almshouses, and hospitals. 
This indecent outrage has been deliberately inflicted 
on us too long. Have we not a right to protect our- 
selves against the ravenous dregs of anarchy and 
crime, the tainted swarms of pauperism and vice 
Europe shakes on our shores from her diseased robes "? 
When this naked mass of unkempt and priest-ridden 
degradation, bruised with abuse, festering with igno- 
rance, inflamed with rancor, elated with blind expecta- 
tions, has sprung on our continent, and turning round, 
shakes its offcast fetters and rags in one hand, bran- 
dishes sword and torch in the other, its eyeballs 
glaring vindictive rage upon the governments which 
have expatriated it, — shall we, without the slightest 
regard to its preparedness, our own safety, or the peace 
of the world, give this monstrous multitude instanta- 
neous possession of every political prerogative, letting 
it storm our ballot-boxes with its drift of mad votes, 
and fill half our oflices with its unnaturalized fanatics ? 
Our own sons serve an apprenticeship to republican 
institutions before they can throw a ballot or occupy 
an elective seat. Should not the banished insurgents, 
the lionost immigrants, the unfortunate exiles, who 
seek a new home here, be willing to undergo a proba- 
tion in some degree proportionate ? Above all, should 
not that foreign spawn, which, with fierce and idiotic 
stubbornness, persists in remaining foreign in the midst 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. ' 29 

of US, keeping alive all its old clannish peculiarities, 
and refusing to blend itself, by assimilating processes, 
with our composite and hospitable nationality, — 
should not this alien horde be compelled to refrain 
from ruling America until it has become a little Amer- 
icanized ? This should be insisted on, for a few such 
viperous traitors as those whose incendiary appeals 
and fiendish curses against their native country have 
thickened our air ever since they landed, — if admitted 
to influential public posts among us, might transform 
the Genius of America, now standing tiptoe on the 
kindling mountains of the West, a halo on his serene 
forehead, and a peace-branch in his hand, into a 
stamping Fury, mustering a fleet of war-ships, and 
foaming through the sea towards the clifi's of England. 
Not only are we to give a friendly reception to 
those deprived of what we enjoy, considering them as 
good as ourselves, and entitled to all our privileges 
just in the degree that they become a part of our 
nationality; we may, furthermore, utter the earnest 
expostulation of our public sentiment against the 
injustice under which they groan in their native 
countries. But we ought, before doing this, to clear 
our skirts of the glaring inconsistencies which will 
provoke retort and rob our appeals of their divine 
point. And we ought to make our protest in a moral 
tone, without arrogance or threats. After all, we 



30' THE GENIUS AND 

shall have to trust for real influence in improving the 
old world despotisms, to the power of our example. 
Set before the rulers and their people the example 
of our exuberant and diffused natural wealth, the 
rapidity of our unrivalled growth, the self-directing 
quietude of our prodigious poAver, our enthusiastic 
popular patriotism, — set this in significant contrast 
with their starving poverty, overshadoAving alarms, 
revolutionary outbreaks, compulsory standing armies, 
general disaffection, and retrogression or paralysis. 
Let that contrast be seen and felt, and it must work 
far more mightily than any other agency we can 
devise. 

Let not Americans be deceived with the vain notion 
that by a propagandist war they could overthrow 
monarchy and establish republicanism abroad. While 
the people in despotic countries are unequally pitted 
against their prescriptive oppressors and need military 
help from without, obviously the fit time for a forcible 
change has not come. Any physical interference on 
our part, upon whatever pretext, would be equally a 
mistake and a tragedy. There is hardly a government 
in the Eastern hemisphere which would not, at the 
first signal of such a thing, join a coalition of crowned 
heads against us ; and after wading in carnage up to 
our horses' bridles, we should reap only a disastrous 
discomfiture. I know the specious plea which may 



iPOSTURSl OF AMERICA. 31 

be made, under certain circumstances, in behalf of such 
an enterprise. I know the attraction with Avhich a 
generous heart, full of faith and sympathy, will respond 
to it. The blood must tingle and jump when one of 
our chivalrous countrymen, in answer to the magic 
voice of' Kossuth, cries, "Unfurl the stars and stripes 
on the plains of Hungary in front of a hundred thou- 
sand American freemen, and then welcome be the 
armies of perjured Austria to the shock." The soul 
stirs wildly at the thought. But ah ! the Angel of 
Humanity would hover o'er the death-strown field, 
and when the night-damp fell, bedew the mangled 
forms of her children with her tears. Long enough 
has this sort of experiment been tried ; long enough 
have men sought redemption by battle, rending the 
nations with hate, and baptizing the new-born children 
of liberty in blood! Now, let a different course be 
fully tested. Let us improve the unparalleled oppor- 
tunity Providence has given us, to try the policy of 
peace and magnanimous example. From all mortal 
contests — in the name of righteousness — in the name 
of humanity — in the name of Christ — in the awful 
name of God — stand we aloof, henceforth, with clean 
hands ! If our brethren of the old countries cannot 
gradually win democratic emancipation by ripening 
steps of reform, but are compelled to snatch the prize 
with violence, when, at length, the rising regiments of 



32 THE GENIUS AND 

the populace strike, we shall best keep the laws of 
wisdom and right, and best subserve the real interests 
of the world, not by plunging into the murderous 
struggle, but by tilling our fields and tending our 
tasks, praying God to preside over the issue which we 
may not arbitrate, and when the last great tempest 
of revolution has passed, to span the Eastern firmament 
with a bright republican bow, like that which soars 
across our Western. 

Under the leading of a manifest destiny, Fate sitting 
on our helms, a demoniac audacity possessing our 
walls, inevitable victory following our march, we have 
already fought no less than seven wars. First we 
contended with the jealous Aborigines ; secondly with 
the allied French and Indians ; then with the British, 
first when we were a colony, afterwards when we 
were an independent nation ; next with the pirates of 
Barbary ; then with the despairing Seminoles ; and 
finally with the weak and bewildered Mexicans. Our 
cannon have volleyed, our banners have flapped, our 
sabres have dripped, our bugles have sung triumph, 
from the wigwams of the Pequot and the fortress of 
Tripoli, to the swamps of Florida and the heights 
of Monterey. From the death of king Philip to the 
fall of Vera Cruz, our eagle, with fatal swoop and 
clutch, has pounced on his quarry, and slowly floated 
ofi", gorged and incarnadined. Surely we have done 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 33 

enough of this bloody business. It is time we. were 
sick of it. We are strong enough not to fight any 
more. By straightforward justice, conciliating heed, 
and intelligent industry, we can amply protect our- 
selves and conquer opposition. Let us now distrust 
and check the passion for military aggrandizement. 
For the future, let us swear by our altars, our homes, 
our thriving villages, our fruitful fields, and the lovely 
canopy smiling over them, that we will cherish peace 
as the central duty of our posture, and the blessedest 
boon of Heaven. However numerous and astonishing 
our victories in the past, however ascendant our fatal- 
istic star in the present, let us remember it is re- 
corded in holy writ, that sooner or later " God scatters 
the people that delight in war." 

The same extravagant self-estimate, lawless passion, 
uneasy and audacious vanity, which have been eager 
for a foreign crusade, have also broken forth in fillibus- 
tering expeditions, winning favor from a large class of 
the population. The fact that such forays, insulting 
the civilization of the century, have been so powerfully 
aided, so openly applauded, so generally winked at, is 
disgraceful and ominous. It reflects infamy on our 
Government, that an iron hand of suppressal was not 
promptly laid on these marauding parties. The un- 
principled characters, the cruel and treacherous con- 
duct of their leaders, are helping to bring on them 



34 THE GENIUS AND 

the odium they deserve. The atrocious violation of 
all law vrhich they directly propose in their predatory 
programme, is their unmitigated condemnation. The 
shocking massacres and utter failure which have re- 
sulted thus far, check them for the present. But 
new expeditions are threatened. The very spirit of 
the enterprise riots in the breasts of thousands. And 
unless the indignation of the higher public, or the too 
long slumbering arm of the executive interfere, we 
may soon see the tragedy of the last year re-enacted 
on a vaster scale by a fresh irruption of United States 
ruffians upon the unhappy fields of South America. 
If we must have for our own that country, so wretched 
with misrule, so rich in array of tropical splendors, so 
neglected and undeveloped, — how much better to win 
its voluntary entrance. State after State, into our Union, 
by the overpowering attraction of an example of uni- 
versal liberty, justice, peace and happiness, than to 
harass it by sallies of brigands, who track every step 
of their way with pillage and murder ! Let superior 
advantages of stable rule, freedom and prosperity, be 
plainly attainable from annexation to us, and Central 
America may be drawn to us, and absorbed, by her own 
desire. But gangs of outlaws, robbing and claiming 
by sheer crime and force, will hardly add any more 
to our territory than they will to our reputation. If 
henceforward we could so quicken the moral senti- 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 35 

ments and sanctify the will of the nation as to curb its 
rampant pride, prevent fillibustering, and avoid war, 
we should escape one of our greatest dangers, — an 
easily besetting danger, which has proved the downfall 
of many a powerful people before us. 

The next palpable danger of our country is from 
the prevalence of egotistic demagogues, who crave 
notoriety and spoils, but care not for principle, for the 
honor of the nation, or for the good of the world. 
Such a style of character is apt to appear in leaders 
and aspirants among a constituency whose ignorance 
and coarseness, taken with low qualities, make idols of 
the mere declaimer and braggadocio. This evil is fear- 
fully rife in many parts of the land, and thoughtful 
men must put forth ' strenuous efforts against it ; for 
when the voters, through crudeness of mind and de- 
gradation of feeling, select for their offices the showy 
sophists and rough champions who cater to their pre- 
judices and wheedle their simplicity, then peril is 
imminent. Between the vile example of immorality 
and insubordination set by those in high places, and 
the mobocratic spirit in the sovereign herd below, 
what can be expected but pitched battles between rival 
claimants for the functions of favoritism and the emolu- 
ments of patronage, and the summary execution of its 
own TDchests by every excited multitude ? Herein lies 
the deadliest foe to a democracy. And when a public 



36 THE GENIUS AND 

functionary, from sinister motives of rewarding partisan 
service foully rendered, gives an office to a brutal bully, 
— be he the mayor of a city appointing a policeman, 
or the President of the United States appointing a mar- 
shal, — he insults the majesty of his prerogative, dis- 
graces himself, and should be smitten with popular dis- 
approbation. Whoever in any degree or manner helps 
to keep alive and pamper the spirit of bludgeonry, is 
the worst curse of his country. Under republican 
institutions, where equal law has its way, where the 
free ballot-box can swiftly end any grievance, and 
establish any right, a resort to insurrectionary violence 
is inexcusable. Whoever, therefore, incites a mob is 
guilty of the most aggravated offence possible to a citi- 
zen. There is no telling where the evil will stop. 
•Every ringleader in such an outbreak deserves instantly 
to have a bullet in his brain. 

General culture is the solid foundation beneath free 
institutions, the guardian wall around them, and the 
high watchtower upon them ; because, where educated 
intellect and refined sentiment are prominent traits in 
electors, they quickly discriminate between the philan- 
thropic statesman who is to be revered and followed, 
and the reckless adventurer who would welcome in any 
form an eruption of the worst passions of the populace, 
hoping in the confusion to snatch the reins of notoriety, 
and ride into power ; — between the demagogue who 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 37 

flatters and cajoles the people, making use of them to 
compass his own ends, and the patriot who disinter- 
estedly seeks, by reason and right alone, to enhance 
the welfare of his countrymen. They accordingly take 
good care to secure for their leaders, teachers, and 
rulers, men of enlarged views, elevated principles, 
peaceful spirit, honest and generous policy. The eagle 
is the national symbol, common both to our demagogues 
and patriots. By stigmatizing every appearance of the 
demagogue spirit, and applauding every manifestation 
of genuine patriotism, let us see that our country be 
truly represented, not by the imperious fierceness of 
that majestic bird, but by his royal courage ; not by 
his talons and beak, that drip with the blood of 
the lamb and the sparrow, but by his eye, that never 
blenches in the blazing beams, and his wing, that out- 
wearies the tug of the tempest and sails above the 
thunder. 

For the healthy state and administration of affairs 

« 

in a democratic country, it should be found that the 
common sentiment is formed and guided by the wisest 
and best, from above the level, — not by the most 
conceited and unprincipled, from below it. Scholars, 
divines, civilians, statesmen, authors, — the most com- 
petent students of subjects, — those whose lives are de- 
voted to moral and intellectual pursuits, in their several 
spheres, should try to correct and lead, not echo and 



38 THE GENIUS AND 

flatter, public opinion. It is alike shameful and alarm- 
ing that the press, the pulpit, the forum, are so often 
occupied by men who, either from want of mind, or 
from selfish and cowardly subserviency, do not give the 
direction which is needed, but take that which suits the 
majority. Every man in a public post who falls in with 
this common meanness and evil, should be hissed from 
his place, to make way for one of nobler aim and 
sterner stuff. In this respect it seems as if there were 
a growing degeneracy among us. Have we not edi- 
tors, who form no opinion of their own, or, forming 
one, never stand by if? Clergymen, who say a man 
need not follow his sense of right? Eepresentatives, 
who make speeches of hollow fustian, cast votes for 
unqualified infamy, diversify the tedium of Congress 
by the interpolation of drunken brawls, and profane 
the steps of the capitol with murderous assaults? 
Upon their debauched brows a nation's scorn should be 
branded while they live, and out of their avoided 
graves, when they die, nightshade should grow. The 
indifference of a large part of our population to the 
character and fitness of the men they elevate to sta- 
tions of trust and power is wicked and insane. Its 
consequences may at any time plunge us headlong 
into the flaming abyss of civil strife, or the jaws 
of foreign war. Verily a new proclamation is wanted 
in our national hustings, of what are the first rudiments 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 39 

of morality, manliness, and merit; affirming in every 
ear and conscience, — what appears not to be under- 
stood, — that the true qualifications for office are not 
drunkenness, pugilism, licentiousness, and bribery ; 
but virtue, intelligence, loyalty, experience, and patri- 
otism. 

Another danger to which we are exposed is from the 
craft and ambition of the priestly spirit, claiming that 
its ritual holds the exclusive means of salvation, and 
that its head is vested with supreme authority. We 
have among us, powerless at present, but diligent, 
selfish, and arrogant as ever behind its seeming meek- 
ness, sleeplessly biding the time when it may unsheath 
its weapons, and assume total supervision of school, 
pulpit, and press, and make the State its supple in- 
strument, — that priesthood, which, wherever it goes, 
still preserves its denationalized unity, paying fealty to 
one celibate old man ; remaining always a separate 
body in the midst of the people ; seeking its own cor- 
porate ends at the expense of everything else. Ro- 
manism is as much a grasping political, as it is an 
irresponsible spiritual, power. Flourishing best amorg 
a people characterized by superstitious puerility of 
thought and abject dependence of condition, it estab- 
lishes eternal ignorance and beggardom that it may 
possess eternal dominion. Its unearthly pretensions 
and persecuting mind necessarily make it an enemy to 



40 THE GENIUS AND 

the genius of republican institutions ; and it must at 
any cost be kept from seizing here those coveted priv- 
ileges which it so tyranically exercises in Catholic 
countries. Could the prisons of the Papacy this day 
burst, and show their contents to the light, America 
would stand aghast at the cruelty, and oppose, with 
leagued conscience and heart, the insinuating ad- 
vances of so fell a power. . If it had authoritative 
sway, no Protestant teacher or author would for a 
day be allowed to exercise his functions unmolested, 
nor could the secular government ever be free from its 
intrigues and assumptions. It has boasted that the 
Pope shall yet set up his chair on the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and it will spare no pains to compass that fond 
consummation. Its propagandist zeal flits from the 
damp mould of mediteval vaults, and hangs over the 
open nest of America, in the democratic sunlight of 
the nineteenth century, dripping sacerdotal poison on 
our young eaglets. Let care be taken that neither the 
papal, nor any other hierarchical priesthood, ever ob- 
tains power oh these shores to apply the rack and 
fagot, which are the legitimate contents equally of 
its faith, its logic, and its spirit. 

But such are the elastic strength and remedial 
vitality of our national organism, — such are the con- 
spiring agencies of providential destiny combined to 
neutralize the hurts and shocks, and aid the victorious 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 41 

course, of this country, — so irresistibly do our palpa- 
ble interests, as well as our solemn duties, plead for a 
policy of internal development by the arts of peaceful 
industry, casting discredit on the crimson lures of con- 
quest, — so spontaneously do the affairs of our thrifty 
and energetic people prosper, whether fostered or ne- 
glected by legislation. — so smoothly do the wheels of 
our governmental mechanism run and achieve its func- 
tions, easily recovering from any friction or strain re- 
sulting from the carelessness or rashness of unfit over- 
seers, — such a tremendous check and healing power 
for the abuse and damage inflicted by demagogues and 
traitors, exist in the limited prerogatives and brief ten- 
ure of our officials, and in their condign dependence on 
public opinion and the electoral urn, — and so rootedly 
averse is the whole genius and operation of our institu- 
tions to the domination of a priestly hierarchy, whose 
history is hateful to the mind of democracy, whose 
antiquated dogmas, formalism, and haughtiness are ir- 
reconcilable with the fresh thought, practical taste, and 
social generosity of our people, — that America might 
laugh to scorn all the evils threatened by her irritable 
pride, by her army of selfish politicians every four years 
clamorously knocking at the official doors, as if they 
were inscribed, "Ask, and ye shall receive," and by the 
determined encroachments of sacerdotal ambition, — 
did not that fearful cui'se. and danger, the problem 



42 THE GENIUS AND 

of slavery, lower over the land, tlie prodigious horrors 
its bosom holds, big with portents of explosion, the 
rasping hostilities its relationship engenders, charging 
the atmosphere with angry lightnings of debate. 

For three-quarters of a century, the Constitution has 
re-enacted for America the part of Amphion, to whose 
charmed strain the spontaneous stones moved and built 
the capital of Boeotia. To the music of the Union, 
our more than Theban walls have been rising, and are 
rapidly building still. On this, the anniversary day of 
the first triumphant prelude of, that edifying music, it 
were a delightful privilege, if we might, for one hal- 
lowed hour, forget every later alienation, turn from 
every unwelcome sight, listen not to a single dissonant 
note, but revive the old concord that made our Fathers 
one, and let the souls of our people, from the lumber- 
ers of Aroostook to the miners of Mariposa, all flow 
together in common memories, loyalties, and hopes. 
Alas, that patriotism, honor, and religion should unite 
to dispel the vision and forbid the dream. 

The fierce clamor of the slaveholding interest for 
more room, fresh prey, new chains, and whips, and a 
longer lease of power, drowns the voices of the Eev- 
olutionary Fathers, vilifies the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, incenses the country, disgraces the age, and 
insults the world. The madness of these retrograde 
fanatics, facing directly into barbaric night, seriously 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 43 

threatens the disruption of our Union, the extinguish- 
ment of the world's latest, brightest expectations. 
This is no exaggeration. The infinite wrong the insti- 
tution of slavery is in itself; the inexpressible wrongs 
it inflicts on its victims ; the insulting arrogance it 
breeds, the deteriorating sloth it pampers, the loathsome 
lust it inflames and feeds, in the master ; the generous 
sympathies and moral sentiments it outrages in the 
contemplator ; — all these facts are necessarily fraught 
with the combustible elements of strife. Besides, the 
want of educational institutions, of high culture, of 
diffused skill and enterprise — a want obviously attend- 
ant on Slavery — naturally leads to exhaustion of the 
soil, decay of wealth, and decrease of society, where 
it is long established, and so force it to seek new terri- 
tory. The North and the West, by their comparative 
enHghtenment, liberty, and progressive thrift are 
girding the South as with a ring of sacred fire. She 
must either get new life and land in Nebraska, Cuba, 
South America, or die of inanition. The clutch on this 
resource by the Slave States is not more tenacious than 
the opposition by the Free States to such a seizure, is " 
resolute. The contest between the obstinacy and aris- 
tocratic passions on one side, the firm convictions and 
clear lights on the other, is grave already, and more 
ominous ahead. 

Under these circumstances, appointed to speak on 



4-i THE GENIUS AND 

the Fourth of July, to the citizens of Boston, I should 
deem myself a recreant son of old Massachusetts, 
guilty of a contemptible trick of cowardice, — the 
blood of the Fifth of March, 1770, would cry against 
me from the pavement of yonder street, — did I, while 
treating of our exposures, evade, through fear of 
touching a delicate subject, a frank reference to the 
chiefest evil and alarm of the land. That ostrich- 
policy, which, amidst thickening sounds of combat 
and signs of dissolution, hides the head in sandy 
generalities, and, quietly ignoring the facts, babbles of 
peace and union, is neither manly nor useful. Far 
nobler is it, and better, to open the eyes, summon 
intellect, heart, and conscience to their work, and 
submit your conclusions with direct candor to the 
wholesome agitation of criticism and argument. 

One thing, then, is as sure as the footsteps of des- 
tiny, namely, that the battle between Slavery and Free- 
dom in America is irreconcilable. One of the parties 
must triumph, and one must yield. Which it shall be, 
and how soon, — there all the question lies. 

There are four conceivable modes of action, one of 
which must be followed, and we may take our choice. 
First : If the Slave States would, as every truth in 
sound policy, as all calm and devout wisdom, requires, 
seek, in union with the Free States, by any feasible 
means, to deliver themselves and the country from the 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 45 

wretched misfortune of ucgro bondage, we might hon- 
orably co-operate with them, and bear a generous 
portion of the pecuniary burden and of the tutoring 
responsibility. Would to Heaven that might be I But 
plainly it cannot be at present. Judicial delusion and 
exasperated obstinacy prevent it. It can come only, if 
at all, when accumulated defeat, perplexity, pecuniary 
ruin and social peril leave the infatuated, baffled op- 
pressors no other door of relief. 

Secondly : If the Slave States, confessing the insti- 
tution to be an unhappy accident, a pernicious mis- 
take, and its removal a desirable consummation, would 
let it be limited to its present domain, with no effort to 
fortify or to spread it,^onestly allowing it to gradually 
ameliorate and diminish before the light of a higher 
polity, and under the influence of natural causes, the 
purer instincts of men, the laws of political economy, 
and the requirements of righteousness, — we might 
justifiably consent, standing on the provisions of the 
Constitution, to compromise so far as to wait patiently 
the time of its legitimate surcease. But how clear 
it is that in their frenzy they will do no such thing ! 
Under a perturbed judgment, they are, for the first 
time, asserting the divine right and benignity of slave- 
holding, identifying their total welfare with its con- 
tinuance, and devoting their entire energies to its 
diffusion. Day and night they are plotting for new 



46 THE GENIUS AND 

fields, and devising new intrenchments. "Within the 
year, with incredible impudence and piratical animus^ 
they have clamored on the floor of Congress, for the 
legalized reopening of the African slave-trade, — the 
most unrelieved system of robber^', murder, and oppres- 
sion ever revealed in history. Affirming the sectional- 
ism of Freedom, and the nationality of Slavery, they 
insist on our complicity with them, commanding us to 
serve as dogs to hunt and return their panting fugitives. 
Can wa endure this, and sit tamely down and do nothing 
to stay the advance of the all-grasping despotism] Xo! 
It is hard enough to leave the evil alone where it is, 
until what time its unnourished being might end. But 
when its supporters demand moft of us than that, they 
ask too much. "NVe cannot let it tramp over its sec- 
tional bounds with obscene hoof to befoul the fountain 
heads of new States, and roil the silver spring where 
our national eagle drinks. 

Thirdly: If the Slave States be suffered to retain 
the preponderant shaping power which their single- 
aiming persistency has given them in the Government, 
and to carry their policy through, concentrating the 
life-passion and stake of the country in Slavery, why 
then America will inevitably be plunged into the 
lowest pit of infamy, and fhence into bottomless ruin. 
Demoralization, poverty, hostility, and contempt from 
abroad, war, and at last, black destruction, will be 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 



47 



unavoidable consequents. , On the other hand, if we, 
while refusing to submit and go with them, permit 
them in their selfish revulsion to withdraw from the 
Union and set up a separate confederacy, a great Slave 
Empire covering the southern half of the continent, 
the terrible crisis will not thereby be averted. The 
conflicting ideas, interests, sentiments of North and 
South will then be vastly aggravated, and present 
restraints no longer be felt. Dislikes will be fo- 
mented, jealousies rankle, quarrels occur, and fraternal 
slaughter unquestionably close the day. • 

Fourthly : There remains, therefore, but one course 
for the Free States to follow, and in that course inter- 
est and duty blend their parallel lines to form a plain 
path. We must rally in our might at the ballot-box, 
and assume that controlling power in the National 
Government which properly belongs to us. On the 
basis of the Constitution, in the spirit of the Fathers, 
we must organize a party animated by the American 
ideas of democratic liberty and progress, to take the 
legitimate supervision of our public policy, and to 
mould our legislation in such a way as to secure the 
strict confinement of Slavery to its present possessions, 
and so to provide for its final abolition. Such a party 
can be formed in a magnanimous spirit of justice and 
kindness to all, equally generous to the slaveholder, 
considerate to humanity, and loyal to God. Its first 



48 THE GENIUS AND 

rictory will carry the Declaration of Independence into 
the sky of the Supreme Court, where each one of its 
"glittering generalities" will be a bright particular 
star to guide the oppressed out of theu* bondage. The 
Free States are simply called on to unite in one grand 
party of right<?ous sentiment, take lawful possession of 
the executiye power, and direct the future conduct of 
the country. This power is our right by the demo- 
cratic rule of majorities, and we haye been bullied out 
of it too long ; for the free voters outnumber the slave- 
holders,' ten to one. To wield it is also our duty, 
because our civilization is higher, our temper purer, 
than theirs : and the superior ought to govern the 
inferior. We contend by argument, example and per- 
suasion; tJiei/, by knife, pistol, and mob. '\'STien we 
are lifting our marble martjr to his niche on Bunker 
Hill, the odious slaveholder who forced the Fugitive 
Slave Bill down our throats, is introduced with compli- 
mentary flunkey ism, in the very shadow of the awful 
place, and we listen to his haughtj*- toned common- 
places with respectful patience ; they will not permit a 
harmless private abolitionist, kno^vn to be such, to 
enter one of their villages, except at the imminent risk 
of outrage and death ; and notoriously there is hardly 
a slaveholding community in the country where a free 
word in public on this subject will not raise a mob to 
hang the speaker on the nearest tree ! 



POSTURE OF A3IERICA. 49 

Furthermore, the Free States are obligated to rouse 
and conjoin their forces to snatch the ofSce of the 
National Executive from the slaveholding oligarchy, 
because otherwise the doom of the Republic is sealed : 
for lasting peace and safety are wholly impossible, 
except in the triumph of right and liberty. Then 
they will be secured ; for we can, if we will, easily 
wield the prerogatives of a ruling majority, and exe- 
cute the behests of just principles with a high right 
arm. And it is the only way to save the country. 
If we unitedly resolve on it, the South will be as impo- 
tent to resist right and wise measures, as we shall be 
able to enforce them, — as helpless to destroy, as we 
shall be competent to preserve, the Union, and to pun- 
ish every attempt to thwart its great ends. Our duty, 
accordingly, in relation to Slavery, is, by consolidated 
voting, to shut it within its jail-limits, and cut off its 
nutriment. Then it will die, and we shall stand justi- 
fied. If we do not this, we shall deserve to become a 
byword and a hissing forever. 

America is at once the oldest and the youngest of 
nations. Inheriting the experience of the past, the 
ages of foregone countries are to be added to hers to 
date her true longevity. Just started on her career, 
the first throbbing glow of promise and ambition in 
her veins, with fuller knowledge, with new elements 
of success, and under more auspicious conditions than 



50 THE GENIUS AND 

any country ever enjoyed before, humanity and the 
world watch, with unprecedented intensity of interest, 
the incidents of her course and the goal of her des- 
tination. Shall her children fail her now 1 Will they 
not see to it that she is represented before the nations 
in a manner worthy of her peerless endowment and her 
providential mission? Let not America appear, in 
genius and posture, a booted and spurred Filhbuster, in 
tawdry uniform and bristling with weapons ; not a 
propagandist Slave-driver, with slouched garb and furi- 
ous mien, a whip in one hand, a bowie-knife in the 
other, the hated renegade of the world ; but a virgin 
Goddess, newly descended on the summits, olive and 
sheaf in her grasp, love and futurity in her eye, celes- 
tial wisdom on her brow, and the hemisphere at her 
feet. 

If all warning omens be neglected, and our really 
good and able men stand back, refraining from their 
proper place and part in public affairs, and demagogues 
and mobs rule, and fanatics feed their bale-fires, and 
the war-spirit be nourished, and a foreign clergy carry 
out their plans, and it be attempted to enlarge and 
eternize the organic injustice and excitement of Slavery, 
— then, just so surely as human nature remains what 
it always has been, fatal alienations will spring up, 
public sentiment will be demoralized, and passion will 
be embittered, till some earthquake of party madness 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 61 

yawns for our fabricated strength, or some volcanic in- 
surrection overwhelms the scene in a deluge of fire and 
blood. There are lessons for us of this sort in the 
shuddering annals of the past, which I need not draw; 
and portents of dreadful note for us in the dilating con- 
troversies and corruption of the present, which I will 
not describe ; because there are also fair prospects for us 
in the promising possibilities of the future, to which I 
eagerly turn, to close in a tone of cheer more befitting 
this festive day. 

There is, I believe, a better fate in store for us and 
our children, than that prophesied by the lugubrious 
croakers of the time. The day brightens above Kansas. 
Conscientious citizens are arousing to their duties. 
The moderates — the golden party of reason, justice, 
and liberty — will overbalance the fevered extremists of 
both sections, and rally a majority around the genuine 
mission of our country, inspired with love and resolve 
to defend from every enemy, within and without, the 
cause of free self-government, the precious legacy in- 
herited from all the ages gone, and now jeoparded here 
in this pass of the world. It is in the power of that 
party, within the present generation, to shape for this 
continent the stupendous issues of the future ; and 
they are trying to do it. Be their numbers reinforced, 
their zeal augmented. Go, all faithful men, to their 



52 THE GENIUS AND 

side, and labor with heart and hand to conform your 
country's laws and policy to the ideal standard of do- 
mestic righteousness and universal fraternity. Looking 
about your broad home-borders, say to Slavery, Intem- 
perance, Ignorance, and the various shapes of Sensual- 
ism and Sin, — Avaunt ! fell Fiends, horrible forms of 
Crime and Woe, brooding Threats, begone from our 
coasts ! Then, gazing across the sea, exclaim with 
open mien and frank voice — 

"Though dwelling in a far-off isle, 
We bear no hate to other lands, 
But think that all the earth might smile 
If they and we but joined our hands." 

Let that spirit be cultivated and that work be pursu- 
ed by the mass of the American people, and year after 
year the results will be seen in the diminution of the 
evils which now so sadly qualify our honor and our in- 
fluence, and in the purification from all its stains of 
that banner of stripes and stars, whose solemn and 
splendid folds, streaming from the central mountains, 
shall yet be reflected at once in the girdling waters of 
the North, the East, the South, and the West, — when 
this entire continent, untrod by the foot of a slave, un- 
profaned by the throne of a tyrant, unshadowed by the 
mitre of a priest, shall be one united nation, powerful 
enough to overawe the world in arms, virtuous enough 
to keep the cardinal laws of God in peace, generous 



POSTURE OF AMERICA. 



53 



enough to win the grateful love of foreign empires, 
wise enough to insure the perpetuity of its own boun- 
teous prosperity to the crowding generations which 
shall successively flourish on its soil and migrate to 
its sky. 



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